“They can join our cause or die,” Evie remarked.
Aya’s thumb swiped over the iron again, her boots squelching as they sank into the muddied path. It must have rained recently. The makeshift prison pens at the back of the camp were no more than mud pits, the prisoners within them caked with dirt and grime, their clothes stiff, as if they’d been wet not too long ago.
Aya kept her gaze fixed ahead as they walked past a particularly large pen, the smell rancid enough that she had to fight against the way her nose wanted to scrunch.
“How is the path to the citadel?” Gregor was saying. “We’ll want to—”
“Aya!”
Aya’s blood went cold at the sound of her name. She stilled, the king and Evie and the colonel halting as well as they turned curiously toward the prison pen.
“Aya! Aya!”
She turned to see a prisoner with wiry black hair, his skin dirt-slicked and pale under the dim light of the gray afternoon. He was pushing past the others, and they all leaned away from him, as if they wanted no part of the attention he attracted.
“I am a friend of Josie’s!” he shouted. “Please, Aya—”
“Silence!” One of the guards rammed the man in the stomach with the butt of his sword. The prisoner made a choked sound as he doubled over in pain.
I made a new friend. His name is Cole.Josie’s words came floating into her mind, murmured on the balcony of the third island of Milsaio.
Of course you did. Friendship is as natural to you as hostility is to me.
Josie had laughed, hadn’t she? Yes…Aya could hear the tinkle of it echoing in her ears.
You are not nearly as hostile as you pretend to be. You befriended me easily.
That’s because you are easy to love, Aya had said, and Josie’s smile had been soft and tinged with a sadness that spoke of her lingering grief over Viviane.
I do not feel easy to love. But—she’d shrugged—Cole is helping.
“Please,” the man—Cole—rasped, his eyes water-lined as he looked up at Aya from where he cradled his stomach.
“Do you know this man?” Evie wondered as she took a step toward Aya.
Aya stared at Cole for another long moment before she shook her head. “I’ve never seen him before.”
Cole’s eyes went wide, bright spots of anger appearing on his cheeks. Aya turned her back on him, her hands clasping in front of her as she looked readily at Evie and asked, “Shall we continue, Your Holiness?”
***
The war tent was spacious, with a large circular table that held a detailed map of Sitya—the same type of map that Aya had once seen pin in Gianna’s map room, the trade depot and businesses of importance marked with pins.
This map, however, was not keeping track of trade. There were clusters of pins throughout the city, marking the path of the Midlands forces and the Kakos defense.
Another map sat on a side table, with figurines dotted across the continent. The colonel strode over and cleared it with a brush of his hand before rolling it up with a snap and setting it aside.
General Dav ducked into the tent a moment later. He resolutely ignored Aya as he took his place behind the circular table and nodded at the colonel.
“All seems accounted for,” Dav observed as he scanned the map of Sitya. “How many do you estimate?”
“Two thousand, sir,” the colonel responded.
Aya frowned. Where did the Midlands even get the troops? Nyra’s army had never been strong in numbers, and those she did have had been decimated after the first attack in Sitya.
Dav pursed his lips, his brow furrowed in contemplation as he seemed to mull over the very same question.
“So Nyra has been recruiting,” he mused. He looked across the table to Evie. “It seems vengeanceisa powerful motivator.”
